In the field of telecommunications, the use of small-cells in high capacity radio access networks is becoming more and more significant. Going forward, a large proportion of radio access traffic will be generated indoors (for example in offices, homes, shopping malls, etc.). Access to high speed and high performance telecommunication networks, for example 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) networks such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) networks or Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks will coexist in a more efficient way with other local communication networks, such as those having Wi-Fi traffic (e.g. 802.11x).
Common backhaul lines for 3GPP traffic and Wi-Fi traffic is highly desirable, and today most of the small radio base station solutions are able to also provide Wi-Fi service. This trend, in having common infrastructure for all the network services, will continue in the future, when different radio technologies and services will coexist under the common umbrella of 5G.
In some systems having combined 3GPP and Wi-Fi traffic, a common Ethernet link can be used to backhaul both 3GPP and Wi-Fi traffic from an aggregation node at a small-cell site. The use of such a common Ethernet link requires 3GPP and Wi-Fi processing at the small-cell site, and in particular baseband processing of the 3GPP traffic at the small-cell site, which can present drawbacks.